Kishion

Kishion (meaning hardness or soreness) was a city in the territory of Issachar assigned to the Gershonite Levites, listed in Joshua 19:20 and 21:28. It is identified with Kedesh of Issachar in 1 Chronicles 6:72, where the same Levitical assignment is recorded under a variant name. The site lay in the fertile territory of Issachar in the lower Galilee and Jezreel Valley region.

Kishion appears only in these city and boundary lists and receives no narrative treatment in the biblical history. As a Levitical city in one of Israel's most agriculturally productive territories, it served as a center for the Gershonite priests and Levites who were responsible for the outer coverings and screen hangings of the tabernacle during the wilderness period. The territory of Issachar, praised in Jacob's blessing as a strong donkey lying between two burdens willing to yield itself to labor (Genesis 49:14–15), provided the agricultural bounty that sustained the Levites assigned to Kishion.